Knowing We Have Not Yet Begun

1“And these are the names of Bnei Yisrael who came to Egypt; with Yaakov, each man and his household came.”¹ Notice that the verse opens Ve'eileh, “And these,” with the connecting letter vav. The Midrash says: “Wherever it says eileh, ‘these,’ it disqualifies the ones mentioned before it; ve'eileh, ‘and these,’ adds praise to them. ‘And these are the names’ adds praise to the seventy souls mentioned earlier, telling us that they were all tzaddikim.”² Yet, in the words of Iyov, “there is still more to say on God's behalf.”³ We must also ask why the verse first uses the name “Yisrael,” which Yaakov received after he prevailed over the angel. That name, as is known from the Zohar, denotes a high level.⁴ Why, then, does the verse go on to use the name “Yaakov,” which denotes a lower one?

2The Baal HaTurim, R' Yaakov ben Asher, notes in his commentary on the Torah that the first and last letters of Yisrael haba'im, “Yisrael who came,” spell milah, circumcision. But what does milah have to do with this verse? He also notes that the first letters⁵ of es Yaakov ish, “with Yaakov, each man,” spell Shabbos. Here too we must ask what Shabbos has to do with this verse.

3The Midrash on the verse “And these are the names” opens with the raising of children and the mitzvah of rebuke.⁶ How do these subjects relate to this verse?

4Let us begin with the words of my holy father and teacher, zt"l. In the Hashkiveinu blessing of Ma'ariv we ask, “Remove the Satan from before us and from behind us.” He explained it through the way the yetzer hara works. Before a person does a mitzvah, it comes to him and tries to hold him back. “Are you really ready and fit to do this mitzvah properly?” it asks him. Against this test we pray, “Remove the Satan from before us,” meaning the Satan who rises up against us before we do mitzvos. Then, once a person has been privileged to do a mitzvah, the yetzer hara comes back and fills him with pride. “How great you are,” it tells him, “to have done such a great mitzvah!” Against this test we pray that the Satan be removed “from behind us,” meaning the Satan who comes after the mitzvah is done. For even after doing a mitzvah we must feel that we have not yet begun, and our longing should always be to keep adding and growing. The Divrei Binah explains another prayer in the same way.⁷ At the end of Shemoneh Esrei we say, “and may my soul pursue Your mitzvos.” This means that even after doing a mitzvah, our soul should pursue more and more mitzvos, because we feel that we have not yet done anything at all. For, as the medieval work Bechinas Olam puts it, “the ultimate knowledge is that we do not know.”⁸ Those are my holy father's words.

5We can explain all this as follows. In avodas Hashem, the service of Hashem, blessed be He, a great foundation is that a person should always be humble at heart. As the verse says, “The reward (eikev) of humility is the fear of Hashem.”⁹ For Chazal teach that of a proud person Hashem says, “I and he cannot dwell together in the world.”¹⁰ It follows that there can be no avodas Hashem without humility. What we must aim for is to know, always, that we still have to add to our avodas Hashem, and that we have hardly even begun it.

6As is well known, the exile of Egypt is the root of all the exiles. So when Bnei Yisrael went down into the exile of Egypt, they had to make this foundation their own, for through it they could endure that exile and all the exiles contained within it. They had to live by “we know that we do not know,” since in this merit a person can serve Hashem and stand firm in every test. The Torah hints at this with the word Ve'eileh, “And these,” which adds to the ones before. Even when Bnei Yisrael stand on a lofty level and are called by the name “Bnei Yisrael,” they must always know that they still have to add mitzvos and good deeds to those they did before. Then their soul will naturally be “like dust to all,” in the words of the same prayer at the end of Shemoneh Esrei. That is why the verse goes on to say “with Yaakov,” the name of a lower level. It teaches that even when they reach a lofty level, they must hold fast to the humility of eikev anavah.¹¹ They must regard themselves as still standing on Yaakov's lower level, as people who still have to make their souls whole.

7This lets us understand why the Baal HaTurim found the mitzvah of milah hinted in the verse “And these are the names …” The mitzvah of milah teaches exactly this point: a person is not complete, and he has to make his soul whole and set it right. The Midrash tells that the Roman governor Turnus Rufus asked R' Akiva, “Whose works are finer, those of the Holy One, blessed be He, or those of flesh and blood? …”¹² Turnus Rufus went on to ask, “If Hashem wants milah, why is a child not born already circumcised?” R' Akiva answered that all the works of the world need to be completed, just as stalks of wheat must be worked on until fine loaves come out of them. So the mitzvah of milah teaches us that we must always keep perfecting ourselves and growing in holiness.

8For the same reason the verse also hints at Shabbos, as we saw in the Baal HaTurim: Shabbos has the power to bring a person to humility. On Shabbos we testify that Hashem created the heavens and the earth and all their hosts. When a person reflects on “He Who spoke and the world came into being,” he sees and recognizes the greatness of the Creator, and he cannot help feeling what a lowly creature he is. The Rambam describes this: “When a person reflects on His great and wondrous deeds and creations, and sees in them His wisdom, which is beyond all measure and without end …, he immediately recoils and is afraid. He knows that he is a small, lowly, obscure creature, standing with slight and meager understanding before the One Who is perfect in knowledge, as Dovid said, ‘When I behold Your heavens, the work of Your fingers … what is man that You should remember him?’”¹³ So far the Rambam's words.

9This also explains a hint found in the holy sefarim, in the Tiferes Shmuel: the first and last letters of Ve'eileh shemos bnei, “And these are the names of the sons of,” are the letters of teshuvah.¹⁴ For this verse hints that we must always grow in holiness, returning to Hashem in teshuvah by doing more and more good, and knowing that we have not yet served Him as we should.

10What we have said also explains why the Midrash opens here with the raising of children. This verse hints that we must always regard ourselves as though we had hardly begun to serve Hashem, like a young boy, and that we must keep adding and take upon ourselves the yoke of the kingship of Heaven. That is its link to the education of the young.

11This applies especially in these days of Shovavim,¹⁵ days of teshuvah and of repairing blemishes in matters of holiness. We should do our teshuvah with humility of spirit, and through it we will bring near the coming of the Redeemer, speedily. Amen.